


The Heart of Lorkhan

by FrickinAngel



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dragonborn (Elder Scrolls), Dwarves, Dwemer Ruins, Elder Scrolls Lore, F/M, Inspired by Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrickinAngel/pseuds/FrickinAngel
Summary: In the middle of a fight with Dwarven Centurions, Anya Dragonborn and Onmund Nordborn fall miles down to an even more ancient Dwemer ruin.  How will they get out, and what will they discover in the process?  Could it be that the 4000 year old mystery of the Disappearing Dwemer may be solved in this story?





	The Heart of Lorkhan

The Heart of Lorkhan

 

Anya swam up to consciousness slowly, opening and closing eyes that felt as though tiny weights were tied to each eyelash. Her head ached and she groaned. 

"Anya! Look at me!"" A stern voice said, startling her. She opened her eyes to find Onmund, kneeling over her. He put a warm hand on her shoulder, his handsome, craggy features illuminated by the harsh metallic glare of a Mage light that crackled and hissed in the darkness around them. 

"Onmund?" She asked, her voice coming out much groggier than she would have liked. As if she had drunk too many pints of mead. "Wha--where are we?"

"Thank the Divines!" Onmund sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "I almost thought. . . But no. . ."

"I'm fine, Onmund. Stop treating me like a milk drinker," Anya groused, pushing herself up on her elbows, her hands slipping on a scree of gritty rocks and pebbles. She yelped then, feeling pain deep in every muscle. She took a slow breath and pushed through it, sitting up. "What happened?"

As far as she could tell, they were surrounded by the rubble of a cave-in. Sparkling dust motes floated all around them in a cloud, lit by the mage light. Whatever had happened, it had just happened. 

"Don't you remember?" Onmund furrowed his brow. "The centurions and the--"

It all began to come back: she remembered the clank and bone-jarring thud of Dwemer Centurion automatons in a dwemer ruin lit by the dim, flickering light of those ever-present gas chandeliers high above their heads, weird, eldritch shadows stabbing about as the Centurions stomped after them, chuffing deadly clouds of steam as they raced down a long metal-grated hallway toward an enormous set of carved brass doors. 

Flashes of green and gold light as she and Onmund desperately fired random destruction spells back over their shoulders as they stumbled over pieces of the fallen ceiling, stars showing through in places above them. Nothing seemed to stop the Centurions for long.

"Just before we got to the doors at the end of the hall," Onmund began, but she finished for him. 

"One of them hit the floor with its hammer and everything crumbled." She thought for a moment, distracted by a smudge of dirt on his left cheekbone. She reached out a hand to brush it off and then dropped it. "After that, it's all fuzzy."

"Because all we did was fall and fall for the longest time," he told her. "You must've been knocked out by a boulder as we fell, because you were out cold until just now." His Mage light fizzled out, plunging them into a deep, velvety darkness and he cast the light again absently with a muttered word. "Thank the Eight they didn't fall on us," he whispered, shaking his head.

"Well, I'm fine now," she assured him, attempting to stand up and bumping her head, hard, on an overhanging chunk of Dwemer-carved stone. Part of the building that had fallen with them presumably. "Now, let's get out of here and find a pint of mead and a warm bed."

"I've already been working on that," he said, looking around at the cave-in. 

"And?" She prodded, beginning to feel irritable. 

In answer, he shot another mage light upwards and they watched, as it sped up, up, up until they lost sight of it. She whistled and planted her hands on her hips. "Okaaayyy. . . So we fell a long way. Up is out of the question." 

"New plan." Onmund said, looking at her seriously, his blue eyes narrowed. "We go that way." He pointed and fired off another mage light, which illuminated a rather small, jagged opening ahead of them. "That appears to be some manner of tunnel."

"You're sure that's our only option?" Anya asked. 

"I had about half an hour to explore what little there was to see while I waited for you to. . . Wake up."

"Okay," she said, trusting that he had been thorough.

"And I didn't want to go too far from you. I was worried. . ." 

That was one of the sweetest things about him, she thought. He didn't care about her being the Dragonborn. He honestly just cared about her. "Thank you," she said, glad he couldn't see the soft blush that had warmed her cheeks. "Then, let's get going."

"Don't you even want to cast Detect Life before we go?" he asked, shocked. 

"Onmund, I trust you. I know you must have already done it." 

"Y-you flatter me," he said, sounding embarrassed. "But yes, I have. And to the best of my knowledge, it's clear ahead." 

"Good. Then, let’s go." He held a hand out for her, which she took and let him pull her to a standing position. More muscles flared with pain and she ignored them as best she could, following him, trying in vain not to limp. A cold breeze on her right elbow showed her that the fall must’ve torn her Guildmaster’s armor to shreds there. She cast a candlelight spell and it hovered over her right shoulder, not quite lighting beyond the hole to the tunnel beyond. 

Onmund ducked through and disappeared and she followed him, the collar of her Thieves Guild armor scraping the stone and sending a small cascade of chilly grit down her back. "By Ysmir!" She cursed and pushed through to find Onmund standing upright in the new tunnel. 

His hands flew out as he cast a mage light in front of them which zipped ahead and stuck to a wall further down the hall, a tiny, sparking ball of bluish light. "I guess we just follow this and see where it takes us."

"As usual," Onmund said faintly. She looked at him, noting his pained expression, and then brushed past him to walk ahead. 

As they walked, the eternal sounds of Dwemer machinery drifted in: whooshes and clanks, gears whirring and clicking. Occasionally, as was so often the case in any Dwemer ruins, you heard the unmistakable sound of water rushing through massive pipes. And then it would go back to the scrape of their leather-soled boots against ancient Dwemer stonework, the hiss of their curses as they tripped over small boulders or bumped into protruding rocks. The way was never lit further than about ten feet by the mage or candle lights ahead of them and they frequently cast Detect Life spells to make sure no ambushes awaited. So far, they seemed to be blessedly alone.

At last, they saw a soft glow of light in the distance, and when they came to it, they discovered it was one of the eternal gas chandeliers, all the way down here, still burning after however many hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. 

No one knew how they worked, whether they were magical creations or fed by gas from deep within the bowels of the earth. Only that they appeared to never run out of the gas or energy that powered them. For all anyone knew, they could be powered by Aetherium. 

The chandeliers appeared to stretch off into the tunnel as far as they could see. Well, good, she thought. Better to have light, however dim, than to have to constantly cast your own.

The further along the hallway they walked, the more it began to look like a tunnel. The hissing brass chandeliers began to be more sporadic, more of them lying broken and tangled on the floor at their feet than hanging to dimly light their passage. The air was chill and dead, feeling as if no one had walked this hallway for centuries. Her fingertips were beginning to get cold inside her leather gloves.  
They had to walk and clamber over more rubble. "There must've been an earthquake," Anya muttered. 

"Maybe more than one," Onmund agreed, tripping over the inscrutable brass head of an ancient Dwemer sculpture in his path. They came upon a place where the tunnel split off. The path to the left appeared to be even more littered with rubble. Onmund sent a bright mage light into the tunnel, and in the hovering light when it stopped, they saw what looked like a dead end. On the floor in the mess of stones and dust, a piece of twisted Dwemer metal stuck up.  
“Dead end,” Anya murmured, and they turned back to the other, clearer path.

The roof of the tunnel or hall rapidly became lower and lower. Instead of being over one hundred feet tall, the top lost in the darkness, now, their mage lights flickered and glowed on a ceiling that was at times only ten or fifteen feet above their heads.  
After what seemed to be at least an hour of walking, Onmund cleared his throat in that way he did that meant he wanted to broach a subject. She stopped and turned to look at him. "Yes?"  
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it seem to you as if we've been. . . moving downward?" He raised his eyebrows. "And I don't feel any moving air to indicate that we're anywhere near a place we can exit."

She hadn't really thought about it as they moved along, always more on the lookout for enemies and danger than geography. But yes, if she thought about all the walking they had done, they were definitely sloping downward. "I think so," she said. "Yes."  
Onmund sighed and looked at his feet for a moment, and then back at her, his expression grave. "I have to wonder where we're headed, if not back to the surface." 

"I agree," she said. "But I don't see any alternative. As far as I can tell, we're stuck traveling in this direction." 

"Yes, rather. . ." Onmund sighed again and they began walking, side by side this time. 

Onmund didn't like the unknown. He had grown up in a Nord farming family who had no time for the vagaries of magic or travel. It had been hard for him at times, following her around Skyrim, largely with no plans. If they even knew the smallest details about the places they explored, he was happy to follow her into danger. But having absolutely no idea threw the poor guy for a loop. "It will be okay, Onmund," she said softly, looking at the side of his face, at his chiseled jawline, teeth obviously gritted. “We’ve always gotten out of every scrape together before.”

"With all due respect, Dragonborn, you don't really know that," he said, not turning to look at her. "We might. . ." He trailed off, obviously not wanting to say whatever he'd been thinking. 

"It will be okay," she repeated, more firmly this time. And so far, she'd always been right. They'd been in some hairy situations, certainly. She had thought for sure that Mercer Frey would get the better of them before they killed him at Irkngthand. And she hadn't been entirely certain that she could end Alduin's destructive reign of terror. But here she was today, alive and reasonably well, right? And both Frey and the World Eater were dead. She saw no reason why today would be any different. "We'll be fine," she whispered again, more to herself than to Onmund. She was cold enough that she cast a warming spell over them both, which helped her feel much more positive for a while. If only you could conjure food and drink, she thought. But that was something that no one had figured out yet in the history of Magic.

She was beginning to feel truly exhausted an hour later, when the tunnel abruptly turned into what felt like an animal's den or cave. The roof sloped sharply down, corralling them into a very narrow amount of space, and it suddenly felt much warmer than it had been since they'd fallen into this corridor. 

"Do you feel that?" they both asked, and then laughed. 

"It's definitely warmer," she said. 

"What could it mean?" he asked. 

She thought about the Aetherium Forge, with its underground volcano. It had been plenty warm there. Not a very nice place though. She hoped there wouldn't be any more Centurions, whatever the case. Her legs felt heavy and leaden with tiredness and overuse. They had been battling the Centurions above for a half hour before they fell, and then of course they had fallen, possibly for a mile or more, which left them both feeling bruised and battered.  
"I don't know," she finally said, not wanting to be negative. 

They came to a stop at another jagged hole that marked the end of the tunnel apparently. Only instead of abject darkness beyond, they could see an eldritch green glow of light through the fissure. 

"Do you see that?" Onmund asked. 

"Could just be glowing mushrooms," she muttered and cast Detect Life ahead of them. A strange light resulted from casting the spell. Instead of showing either the (color?) shapes of "friendly" living strangers or the red shapes or enemies ahead, one large, wiggly orange shape showed as being ahead of them. "What the. . .?"

They cast Muffle spells, crept forward and peered through the opening to find something she couldn't really even make sense of. "Definitely not glowing mushrooms," she said, looking at Onmund. He looked back at her quizzically. "Never mind," she said and stepped through the opening. 

Onmund followed her into the cavernous room, which looked every bit Dwemer-built, complete with brass effigies of ancient Dwemer men, carved stone walls and pillars, and glowing gas chandeliers high above their heads, casting wavering shadows of their bodies that pooled at their feet. There were rows of stone benches lining the room, as if this were a church. 

At the center of the room, stood what must've created the strange orange shape they had seen when she cast Detect Life: A huge orange vortex swirled with what looked almost like licking flames between two tall, carved stone pillars. Judging from the distance they stood from it, it must be absolutely enormous. Her heart sank, just a little. She was reasonably sure she knew just what this was. And it wasn't good.  
"Is that—" Onmund began. 

"An Oblivion gate?" Anya finished for him. "I think so, yes. I've seen two of those in all of my travels, and this looks a lot like those."

"Oh Gods, no. . ." Onmund moaned. "Surely, this is above my pay grade." 

They investigated every nook and cranny of the giant room, the whooshing and crackling sound of the gate seething around them like angry whispers in an empty house. There were no other doors, no tunnels, no hallways anywhere. Onmund and Anya used every revealing spell for hidden passages they could think of. Nothing. 

The only way to progress was to go through the Oblivion gate. 

Finally, they went back to the gate and walked around it. It was different from the two Oblivion gates she'd seen before in that it had those Dwemer stone posts as supports instead of the odd, free-form Daedric rock sculptures that usually marked the gates of Daedric realms. 

It was the same on the front as the back, radiating a warmth that pushed the chill in Anya's bones back nicely, but that worried her. What if it opened up into some obscure Daedric Plane? One that didn't like humans entering? Or one that did like humans entering? She wasn't sure she liked either option. She'd had a lot of dealings with Daedra, and they were never ones she'd come away with feeling that she'd gotten the upper hand in. 

"I don't like this much," Onmund whispered, sounding tense. 

"Nor do I," she agreed, shaking her head. "But I don't see what else we can do, my friend." 

"I read a lot about Oblivion gates and Daedric realms when I was still at Winterhold," he admitted. "By Ysmir's beard, I have no desire to see one!" 

"I think we're about to see something though," she said, putting a brave face on. "It's either that, or starve to death down in this tunnel, never to see the sun or the two moons again." 

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds so much better. . . " Onmund made a weak attempt at a joke. 

"I know, I know," she said. "We move forward then." 

They stood for a moment, and then stepped forward, feeling the energy of the Oblivion gate wrap itself around them like fingers of flame, fizzy and hot, and then they were pulled forward.

 

Chapter Two

They came slowly through what felt like dry water—the air was thick and shimmery and shapes undulated in front of them. They were unable to move as they passed through the gate, but at last, the air seemed to disperse around them and become thinner. 

Anya fell to her hands and knees, her head light and confused after coming through the gate. A thick wave of nausea and dizziness threatened to knock her over onto her side and now she was glad that she had not eaten in so long. When she had come through Oblivion gates before, she had thrown up her last meal instantly. Now her stomach only roiled like a wave in the Sea of Ghosts. 

She looked over at Onmund, who was lying on his back, eyes closed. She didn't think he had ever gone through a gate before, and it showed. "Onmund?" she stage-whispered. 

His eyelids flickered, then opened, and he turned his head to look at her, eyes bloodshot. "Where are we?" he groaned.

She looked around. They seemed to be in a mirror of the same vast room they had just left. Rows of stone benches stood opposite the gate where they lay. However, the gas chandeliers appeared shiny and new here, the light brighter and warmer than what they usually saw in Dwemer ruins. There was no dust hanging in the air. Everything smelled clean and fresh, as if they weren't somewhere miles underground. She looked around a little more. 

There were two large, almost floor to ceiling windows in this room. She hadn't noticed at first because it appeared to be dark beyond the glass. As the nausea ebbed, she pulled herself up to a seated position, and then forced herself to stand up, every muscle in her body complaining loudly. Onmund did the same, with a low moan of pain. Brief but intense headaches weren't uncommon when one traveled through Oblivion gates either, she remembered. "Are you all right?" she asked. 

He grimaced and paused for moment before nodding. "I suppose I'm as well as can be expected."

"Then let's go discover where we've landed," she said. 

"Yes," he agreed, following her towards the windows. "Only, there doesn't seem to be a door, does there?" 

"No," she said. “However, I see something between the windows.” They walked through the field of glossy black stone benches and over to the right hand window. Anya put her hand up to shield her eyes from the overhead chandeliers so she might be able to look out. Dimly, she could see the shape of dark, pointed forms (mountains perhaps?) in the distance, and millions of stars in the sky above. 

So, it was night, wherever this was. Somehow, they were no longer underground. Where had that gate taken them? She walked over to the big expanse of empty wall space between the two windows.

A small, round button with ornate brass trim in the Dwemer fashion glowed a soft, pulsing green. The scrape of Onmund's boots told her he'd joined her. She looked at him and he shrugged. "May as well press it," he said. 

"I never could resist pushing a button," she agreed, and pressed it. They both stepped back as it made a tiny ding sound and the part of the wall in front of them soundlessly melted away, leaving a perfect door-shape, leading to the outside. 

"What manner of magic is this?" Onmund breathed. 

"Not magic perhaps, but advanced Dwemer science," Anya speculated. 

"More advanced than any we have seen before," he said, putting his hand out to see if there was any barrier to their leaving just as the wall reappeared, startling them both. 

The small green button again glowed at them. "Apparently it wants you to walk through in a reasonable amount of time," Anya said, a smile quirking her lips up at the corners. 

Onmund pressed the button this time and when the door reappeared, they stepped right through, onto a smooth surface that felt like warm stone. 

They looked back at the door, but it had already disappeared, leaving a vast expanse of wall in front of them with a small, glowing red button instead of the green one. They turned back to look away from the building they had just come from, Onmund whispering a Candlelight spell to light their way, when a pale blue orb of light rose from the ground, apparently, to hover just a few feet off what was unmistakably a paved, stone pathway. 

Anya took a step towards the light, and immediately another blue orb rose and floated a few feet away, illuminating more of the path. "Amazing," she said. "It's like magic, but knowing the Dwemer, it may not be."  
“Perhaps more of their brilliant work with harmonic energies?” Onmund mused. 

They began to follow the path, which continued to be lit evenly by the hovering orbs, which provided just enough light that it didn't destroy their night vision. She could still see the carpet of beautiful stars high above their heads, with wholly unfamiliar patterns and constellations to her. They seemed to be walking towards another huge building off in the distance. 

The sounds of the night surrounded them, much like in Skyrim: crickets, or something very like them, the occasional low trill of a night bird here and there, a breath of wind against their skin and the scrape of their boots on the pavement. It was a perfect temperature out, Anya realized. Not warm enough that she needed to remove her armor and strip down to her tunic and pants. A huge, orangey moon, pitted with craters, began to rise off to their left, over the jagged mountains. Nothing like Masser or Secunda, Skyrim's two moons, but beautiful itself. 

As they got closer to the building they were approaching, it grew bigger and bigger, of course. As far as they could tell, it was larger than any of the Dwemer ruins they had heretofore seen in Skyrim. Clouds of steam emanated from tubes all over what must surely be an entire, vast palace, maybe even a city. 

Her heart gave a little start when she saw that there were no less than four Dwemer Centurions just standing against the walls, puffing steam very actively, as if breathing. But they didn’t move and didn’t seem to care that two small humans had just arrived in their midst. 

Onmund stopped looking around and stared at her. “Where in Oblivion have we ended up, do you suppose?” 

She was about to answer that she didn’t know, when an imperious voice rang out in the stillness: “You are in Kagrenac Citadel, humans. Perhaps you would care to explain yourselves?” 

Anya and Onmund turned to see a tall, very blond, Elvish-looking man striding towards them, flanked on either side by rattling Dwarven Sphere Guardians, not sporting sword attachments like the ones from Skyrim, but glowing sabres of humming, blue light. 

“Good evening, Sir,” Anya called, raising her empty hands to show that they meant no harm. Her Daedric sword was sheathed at her side. “I am Anya Dragonborn of Skyrim, and this is my companion, Onmund Nordborn.” 

The Elvish-looking man arched his nearly blonde eyebrows in surprise. “Skyrim, you say? Then you have surely worked very diligently to find yourselves in the company of the Dwemer.” 

Chapter Three

“The Dwemer?” Onmund stammered, his face white. 

The elf nodded and said, “Indeed. . . And we have seen none of your kind for over 4000 years.”

Anya felt a rising flush of excitement filling her chest. She wanted to simultaneously pepper this elf with questions and rush over to hug him. She found herself grinning foolishly and staring at this snobby-looking, slender elf, trying to drink in every inch of him. The Dwemer, alive and well, here! Wherever here was. . .

“I’m so pleased to meet you, Sir,” Anya said, reverently. “Are you aware that you and your kind are. . . well, legendary where we come from?” 

The elf nodded again, a small, self-satisfied smile curving his lips up at the corners. “We are aware, yes.”

“How is it that you came to be here? Why leave Skyrim in the first place? Where are we?” She couldn’t seem to stop asking questions. They just kept tumbling out from somewhere deep inside her. The Dwemer! 

The elf put one hand up to stop her, smiling more broadly now. “All in good time, Anya Dragonborn. But first, you must both be very tired and hungry after such an. . . arduous journey.”

“Yes,” Onmund agreed beside her. 

The elf clapped his hands once and said loudly, “Then let us set you up with a fine repast and accommodations to rest in for the night. We will talk come morning as we break our fast together.” 

Anya wanted to continue asking questions, but it was clear the elf, who still hadn’t given them his name yet, wasn’t ready to divulge answers now. She smiled. “That would be very generous and kind of you, sir.” 

*******

Morning. . .

Anya rose through deep layers of sleep and confused dreams to the warmth of Onmund, still drowsing beside her under warm furs on the soft bed, his strong arm draped over her stomach. Warm sunlight beamed through the tall windows opposite the bed, and Anya sat up, to look outside, feeling last night’s excitement beginning to fill her already again. 

They had a fine view of the sharp peaks of snow-covered mountains and deep, clear blue sky above. The Dwemer city was apparently in the center of a wide, shallow bowl of a green valley. Small Dwemer houses dotted the valley here and there, and there were some type of grazing animals in small groups near many of the houses. Each house had what looked like a large garden plot nearby, and in the far distance, just before the mountain range to the East, Anya could see what looked like vast farmland. Here and there, big farm horses plodded along, pulling heavy, wooden carts, just as they did in Skyrim.

She got up and threw open one of the windows. A chorus of delicate bird song immediately filled her ears. Wherever the Dwemer lived, it was truly a beautiful land. She turned around to find Onmund, sleepily sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Let’s get dressed and go break our fast with our host!” 

Onmund smiled brilliantly at her. “The Dwemer! Can you even believe it, Anya?” 

She nodded. “It’s the greatest discovery in 4000 years! We are about to find out how they came to leave Skyrim so suddenly.” 

******

Onmund and Anya wandered down a beautiful, ornately carved stone staircase from their quarters, following the wonderful smells of bacon, tea and the sweet aroma of baking bread. They had only had a quick, cold meal before falling into bed last night, so they were both ravenous. 

They walked into a bright, somehow airy stone room, filled with golden sunlight that streamed through more banks of windows in the dining room, to find their host facing away from them, as he stood, looking out one of the windows, hands clasped behind him. Four Dwarven Sphere Guardians stood, one in each corner, flaming blue swords sheathed at their sides. 

Onmund cleared his throat and their host turned around, a smile warming his cold features. His blond hair was combed back from his high, elvish forehead, just as modern elves did in Skyrim, Anya thought. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same apparently. 

“Good morrow, friends!” The elf said. “And let me finally introduce myself. I am Corelian Lorkalin, the supreme ruler of Kagrenac Citadel.” 

Anya walked over to him and shook his hand. “I am pleased and honored to meet you, Sir Lorkalin. You cannot know how happy I am to have found you and your brethren.” 

“Yes, quite,” Lorkalin agreed. “You may call me Corelian, if you wish.” Several Dwemer servants came into the room, silently bearing plates of food that they placed on the long, stone table that stood in the center of the room under a glowing Dwemer chandelier. They swept out of the room without ever looking at Anya or Onmund. 

Corelian gestured for them to sit at the table and eat, and they followed him to do just that. The food was delicious—hot, crisp bacon, thick slices of fresh, rich bread with creamy yellow butter to spread on it, herbed, roasted eggs, which Anya had read was a Dwemer specialty centuries ago. 

The servants came back in, bearing ceramic cups full of steaming sweet tea, which fragrant steam arose from in long curls. They began to eat as Corelian spoke. “I’m sure I don’t have to educate either of you on the cruel, bloody history of the Dwemer before we left Skyrim and Mundus itself?” Anya and Onmund shook their heads. 

Everyone in Skyrim had read the account of how first the Nords had killed the Snow Elves by the thousands, eventually slaying their beloved Snow Prince. After that, the remaining Snow Elves turned to the Dwemer for help. But instead of helping them, the Dwemer made them first servants, and then blind slaves, after forcing them to consume toxic fungi for generations, which eventually mutated them into the vile Falmer race that lives only underground in modern Skyrim. 

“A terrible betrayal, I know,” Corelian breathed, shaking his head sadly. “Many of my ancestral brethren were horrified by the enslavement and ultimate corruption of the Snow Elves. They resolved to do something about it to help them.” 

He looked at Anya and Onmund in turn, his eyes haunted. “A cartel of brilliant Dwemer scientists worked around the clock for years on improving our knowledge of harmonic resonance science.”

“Why?” Anya asked, fascinated. 

Corelian frowned. “Because they planned to send the Snow Elves’ captors far from Skyrim and set the Snow Elves free. But they failed. . . Or perhaps they succeeded. They managed to set up a harmonic resonance using the sacred Heart of Lorkhan that only recognized those of Dwemer blood.” 

“Oh Gods,” Onmund whispered, looking shocked. Anya wasn’t quite sure she understood yet. “And the entire Dwemer population was cast out of Skyrim and Mundus in one day?” Onmund asked, his eyes wide. 

Corelian nodded. “Yes. All of my Dwemer ancestors suddenly found ourselves here, in this Daedric Realm we call Lovilian, for reasons no one now can remember.”

“Wait, Daedric realm?” Anya asked. “But the only Daedric realms I’ve been to are. . .”

“Dreadful, nasty places of debauchery and misery?” Corelian asked, arching his eyebrows and smiling. “Well, it was just as you remember when we first arrived. And during the first few hundred years of our lives here in Lovilian, my ancestors worked very hard to change that, remaking the realm to look much like the beautiful Skyrim we had left behind forever.” 

“But how. . . ?” Onmund asked. “It would have been a monumental undertaking!”

“Oh, it was, Onmund Nordborn. It was. . . From all I have read, it was a heroic effort that has paid off quite nicely. The land you see around you has fertile soil, many delicious, edible native plants for farming and animals for the hunting and raising. We live quite nicely here, as you can see.” 

“And you’ve made many scientific advancements since your days in Skyrim,” Anya observed, looking at the blue swords the sphere guardians in the corners carried. 

“Yes,” Corelian said. “We have always been a curious and driven people. We have made a wonderful land here, and we intend to keep it that way.” 

“What do you mean by that?” Anya asked, feeling a thread of worry. It was a strange way to put it, she thought. 

“I mean that the Dwemer have remained unfound by humans in 4000 years and we do not intend to have that changed because two warriors stumbled into our realm like a couple of common thieves.” Corelian sipped tea from his cup. Anya felt her sense of worry deepen. She looked at Onmund to see if he was worried also, but couldn’t tell. He appeared rapt with interest in their host’s story.

“The Dwemer people of old initially wanted to be found, wanted to be discovered and helped back to Mundus,” Corelian explained calmly. “But once we had remade this world into such a paradise, we realized that we didn’t want other races coming here and perhaps warring with us. Ever again.” 

“Ever again?” Anya asked, her palms feeling sweaty as she began to feel worse about this. 

Corelian picked up his cloth napkin and delicately wiped his fingertips on it as he said, “Yes, think of all the wars between your Nords and the various Elvish folk of Skyrim throughout the ages. They have always been at each others’ throats, have they not?”

“I suppose they have,” Onmund agreed absently, taking a sip of his tea. 

“Well, we see no reason to invite a warring people, or anyone else, for that matter, to Lovilian,” Corelian said, folding his napkin and smoothing it flat on the table. “We didn’t think it possible that anyone would ever be able to find their way to our realm after all these years until you two came along.” 

“But why leave the Oblivion gate and the door intact?” Anya asked. She was beginning to see where this conversation was going. “Why not just destroy it, along with the tunnels leading to it?”

Corelian shook his head. “But that wouldn’t do at all, would it? How would we get back to Mundus when we wanted if we destroyed our only entrance?”

“What?” Anya asked, stiffening. “You mean to tell me you are able to get to Skyrim whenever you want? But how do you get back up through the miles we fell down to get to the tunnels?”

“You don’t really believe that we wouldn’t have developed technology to deal with that in all this time?” Corelian asked, chuckling. 

“Flight?” Onmund asked in a dry, dusty voice, awed. “Is it possible that you have flight?”

Corelian nodded. “Of course we do! We are a resourceful people, Onmund. We developed personal flying ships centuries ago. Oh, I admit, at first we needed to use cleverly disguised elevators of the sort you have used to access Dwemer ruins across Skyrim no doubt.”

“Incredible,” Anya and Onmund murmured at the same time. 

“But, why haven’t we seen any of these ships since we arrived?” Onmund asked. 

Corelian cocked his head at them, a smirk flattening his smile. “You don’t suppose that sort of technology is for the common rabble now, do you?” 

“But why would you want to go back to Skyrim, when you have all of this beauty and bounty right here?” Anya asked, perplexed. She looked out the window again at the gorgeous sun-bathed countryside. 

“Why for the mining, of course,” Corelian said. “This land, while fertile and rich in many ways, has little in the way of natural resources such as metals, and absolutely no Aetherium whatsoever.” 

“But how do you mine—where do you mine in Skyrim, that no one has seen you in all this time? Wouldn’t the people of Skyrim have figured out that the Dwemer were mining for resources and taking all of the metals away?” Onmund asked. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Corelian asked, laughing again. “Why, the Falmer do it all for us!” 

“The Falmer?” Anya asked. “But I thought you said your ancestors reviled the enslavement of the Snow Elves?” 

“My ancestors, yes. . .” Corelian agreed, taking another dainty sip of his tea and dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “But as we began to discover just how rare the metals we needed were here in Lovilian, we realized that we could go back to Skyrim to get what we needed there. And we already had a free source of labor at our disposal.”

“But the Falmer are so angry and warlike—” Onmund began, shocked.

“They recognized us instantly when we approached centuries after we had left,” Corelian said, looking proud. “They knew us for the master race that we are—we had, in essence, created them, after all.” 

“That’s sickening,” Anya said, shuddering. “You re-enslaved them?” 

“Well, to be clear, it wasn’t me that did it. It was my ancestors. But they were merely awaiting a purpose in life, Anya Dragonborn,” Corelian said. “They had even found the source of Aetherium in their subterranean explorations. It must have happened a couple of centuries after we left. Now we have a clean power source for our flying ships, our automatons and lights. Steam power, as always, does the rest. It’s brilliant, if I do say so myself.” 

Anya thought of all of the Falmer she had killed thoughtlessly when they were exploring Dwemer ruins. They were always so angry and spiteful, so full of rage at them. She had never thought about why. But they were all slaves apparently. Even 4000 years after the Dwemer left Skyrim so suddenly. 

But it also appeared that the Dwemer hadn’t really left. They had only hidden themselves. . . 

“You’re no different from any other enslaving race, Corelian Lorkalin. You sit in your lofty Adamantine Towers in your beautiful land, far from the sick, twisted enterprises you have created in Skyrim and congratulate yourselves on the wonderful accomplishments you have made. All because of the poor Falmer.” Anya shook her head angrily. 

“And this is why we have kept it a secret and stayed here, hidden away in beautiful Lovilian,” Corelian said. “Because your kind can never understand why we do this: The Falmer had already been betrayed and enslaved, changed from the beautiful and intelligent Snow Elves they once were. They were already slaves in their minds, even generations after my ancestors enslaved them. Why not let them fulfill the purpose they were created for? To be loyal servants to the Dwemer for all time.” 

“By the Eight,” Onmund swore. “This is a treachery I would never have believed. I thought the Dwemer were misunderstood, that they were a noble people! But this. . .” 

“The Dwemer are a noble people, Onmund. We created an entire, beautiful world inside an abandoned Daedric Realm—Lorkhan’s abandoned realm. We live in a crime-free world, where all of our people are happy and have enough to eat, are always warm enough and have comfortable houses. What is not admirable in this?”

“At the Falmer’s expense!” Onmund said. Anya was too upset to speak. 

“I don’t expect you to understand or condone it,” Corelian said imperiously. 

Anya stood up abruptly. “I’d like to go home now.”

Corelian raised one hand in a strange gesture and the sphere guardians came to life as one, brandishing their flaming blue swords. Anya looked nervously at Onmund, who shrugged, perplexed. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he said, looking sad. 

Onmund stood now, too. “And why is that?” 

“You are obviously against our very way of life, my friends. . . I could never allow you to go back to Skyrim and potentially bring the wrath of the Nords down upon us.”

“No one would believe us,” Onmund tried to say. 

“Nonsense,” Corelian said. “I know exactly who you are. You are the Dragonborn of legend. Everyone would believe you and rally behind you, and you would move heaven and earth to halt our enslavement of a people who enjoy doing our bidding!” 

“That is simply ridiculous!” Anya argued. “If you had ever been amongst the Falmer, you would know that they are a vile, twisted race of angry people. Now we know exactly why: because they have been enslaved for over 4000 years!” 

“What if we promised not to tell anyone?” Onmund asked in a small voice. 

Corelian shook his head and made another gesture with his hand, and the four sphere guardians rolled closer to them with a clicking and whirring of metallic gears. “I’m afraid I can already see the writing on Anya’s face, Onmund. She would never agree to leave a people enslaved in exchange for her freedom. You have only to look at her, or to know her accomplishments, to know it.” 

Anya was so angry, she felt her head swimming. Or was it that she was dizzy? “Wait!” she began to say, but she was already beginning to fall from her chair, her limbs unmoving. 

Corelian chuckled and looked down at her. “A simple sleeping potion in both of your teacups was enough to fell the Dragonborn. Goodnight my friends!” 

Anya’s vision went dark as she fell into unconsciousness. 

Chapter Four

Anya felt herself slowly slither up to consciousness, and found herself lying in bed in her room in the Dwemer palace. She felt woozy and confused for a moment, but quickly sat up on her elbows and looked around. There was Onmund, staring disconsolately out the window at the suns just beginning to set. Apparently they had two suns here, she mused, and then remembered:

“Gods!” She said, startling Onmund, who turned around to face her. “I can’t believe that milk drinker drugged us! What are we going to do to escape this?” 

“I don’t know how we will escape this cage, Anya,” Onmund said, shaking his head as he came to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “There are six Dwarven Ballistae outside our room and they have blue light arrows that look highly dangerous.” 

“Well, perhaps under cover of darkness, we could use the Ethereal shout to jump from the window and escape?” she mused. 

Onmund shook his head. “I’ve seen at least two Centurions standing posted, one right below our window.” 

“Onmund, how many Dwarven automata have we killed in our time together? Surely hundreds! You think these will be any different against us?” 

“Sadly, I fear they will, Anya. If you will only listen to me—”

“There’s nothing that won’t fall before our weapons and skills!” she blustered. 

Onmund stared at her. “Our weapons were taken from us as we slept the first night, Anya.”

This was a blow, certainly, she thought, and then perked up. “So we use magicka! We are both highly advanced sorcerors, Onmund Nordborn! Have you forgotten that?” 

Onmund put one gentling hand on her shoulder. “Anya. . . These automata have those flaming blue swords and bolts. We have no idea what they are, what they are capable of. But I can only surmise that in 4000 years, the wily Dwemer have managed to make very effective weaponry.” 

“We have to try!” Anya spat. “We have to! There is no way I am giving in to defeat because of a few Dwemer robots! We have advanced shield spells, fire, frost and lightning walls. . . And, well. . . I’m the Dragonborn, by Ysmir! We’ve gotten out of far worse scrapes than this!”

Onmund went back to looking out the window, his expression pained. “Yes. . . There is that,” he agreed. 

“It sounds to me as though you have another argument against me, Onmund?” She queried. 

Onmund did not turn around. “It’s just that even if we were to escape the Dwemer and make it back to the Oblivion gate, what are we to do then? We’ll still be stuck in tunnels, possibly leagues down from the surface of Skyrim with no way to exit.” 

Anya opened her mouth to counter what he said with talk of swords or shields or Daedric bows, and then closed it with an audible click. She sighed. “Point taken. . .” 

She flopped back on the bed, defeated. “And we have no idea where their flying machines are, even if we knew how to fly them.” 

Onmund came and lay beside her, curling himself around her as he so often did, his soft, sweet breath against her neck and ear, his hand resting on her ribcage, warming her. She didn’t know how long they lay like that, but the suns had long ago set. The only light in the room came from the gas chandelier high above their heads. 

What would they do, she wondered. There had been other puzzles, other conundrums to solve throughout her time in Skyrim. Surely there had to be an answer? Onmund’s breathing had leveled out into the even cadence of sleep when she suddenly realized.

She sat up, shocking him awake and whispered, “Cleverly disguised elevators!” 

Onmund sat up beside her and looked at her sleepily. “Pardon me?” 

“That’s it! Corelian said that before they developed flying machines, they needed to rely on ‘cleverly disguised elevators’ to access the surface of Skyrim!” 

Onmund rubbed the sleep from his eyes and smiled. “Yes! He did, didn’t he? At least one must be somewhere along the way in the tunnels or just before the Oblivion Gate!” 

A thought struck Anya just then. “Remember when the path branched off and we saw that piece of Dwemer metal sticking up at the dead end?” 

Onmund’s eyes lit up and he grinned. “That must be the elevator!”

She grinned back at him, already feeling more confident. “Now, all we need to do is get past the Dwemer army!” 

“Easy,” Onmund joked. “Just like every other time!” 

******

They talked until late in the night. The Dwemer servants, protected by Sphere Guardians, delivered them steaming plates of dinner. It seemed they were to be kept as prisoners of honor, as far as the Dwemer were concerned. Not forever, if Anya could help it though. 

The made their plans in hushed whispers, in case Corelian had some devious way of listening in their room. 

During their time spent defeating Miraak on the Elven isle of Solstheim, they had both learned the Adept-level spell Ash Shell, which froze any opponent in place for up to 15 seconds. You couldn’t harm them during the time they were coated, but it also paralyzed them entirely for that time, allowing you to continue to run. 

They devised a plan comprised of Anya using the Ethereal shout while holding onto Onmund so they could jump out the window, and then casting Ash Shell on as many enemies as they could, and using conjured Dremora Lords to fight with them, hopefully drawing attention away from them. They would fight their way back to the Oblivion Gate and the tunnels hopefully, and then somehow be able to find the elevator leading to the surface. 

“It’s as good a plan as any,” Onmund said, shaking his head. 

“And no time like the present to begin,” Anya agreed. 

“Now?” Onmund asked, shocked. 

“Perhaps they won’t have as many soldiers available to them in the middle of the night,” Anya mused. “Whatever the case, we don’t know. And I don’t want to wait for my food or water to be drugged again. I’d rather get to work.” 

It was settled. Anya felt sad to leave her bellowed Daedric blade behind, but considered it a small price to pay for their ultimate freedom. She could craft a new one when and if they made it back to Skyrim. 

 

Chapter Five

Before they went to stand at the tall window in their room, Anya and Onmund first cast the Muffle spell on themselves, and then an Invisibility spell. Finally, Onmund held Anya’s hand as she uttered the Ethereal shout as softly as she could, so as to remain unnoticed for as long as possible. “One, two, three!” They leaped out the window, Onmund’s hand feeling as insubstantial as a ghost’s in her own as they hurtled down seven stories of the Citadel, the ground racing up to meet them. 

They landed hard, the Ethereal shout, already beginning to wane, their lower legs singing with sharp pain. Anya instantly cast another Invisibility spell on them. So far, no one had noticed their exit. They began to walk as stealthily as they could, hearts pounding, palms sweaty, disguised by magic, along the path towards the building they had entered Lovilian through. 

They walked right past two Centurions who clearly didn’t perceive them, steam hissing slowly from their brassy mouths, eyes glowing with the strange blue light of Aetherium. Anya thought her heart might pound itself right out of her chest as she quietly cast Invisibility on them again. Onmund’s hand tightened on hers, afraid, but they continued on, unnoticed. 

Interspersed along the path, they could see the outlines of Dwarven spiders and Ballistae, standing at attention, but unmoving. They would have to be very quiet, she thought. 

The sky was just beginning to lighten over the building they were headed towards. That must be the East, she thought, just as Onmund kicked a small rock with his boot and sent it skittering along the path to hit with a clink into the brass armor of one of the Ballistae beside the path. It instantly chuffed out steam and began looking around for them. 

Anya cast an ash shell over it, freezing it in place, as Onmund began doing so to all of the other guardians he could reach. Many of them tipped over with thuds, encased in thick ash, but still others evaded them, and the Centurions behind them began to clank angrily towards them. 

“Run!” Anya hissed, casting spells every which way as their Invisibility spell lapsed, leaving them completely visible again. They were halfway to the building they needed to get to, surrounded by Dwarven automatons shooting beams of blue light at them and clattering toward them on metal legs when they heard a low whirring noise behind them. 

“Leaving so soon?” Corelian’s magically magnified voice boomed all around them, nearly shattering their eardrums. 

Anya looked around quickly to see Corelian skimming about five feet above the ground in a strange, arrowhead-shaped ship, speeding toward them, a blue light sword in his right hand.  
“Run faster!” she yelled now, and heard Onmund pounding along beside her, both of them puffing and panting with effort to outrun their captors. 

As she pounded along, Anya quickly shouted the Call of Valor, calling upon her fallen comrades from Sovngarde, hoping they would be able to help and they were instantly there, three great warriors from the past in ghostly form, brandishing sword and shield, knocking arrows and shouting at their attackers to “Fall back! Fall back!” 

Then she conjured a horde of fierce-looking Dremora Lords as fast as she could and they were soon chasing after and cleaving Dwarven Automata into small, brassy pieces. 

Blue beams of light from Corelians ship sizzled into the ground around her, searing the grass and plants audibly. “There is no escape, Anya Dragonborn!” Corelian shouted, laughing. He clearly thought this was an amusing diversion, she thought, angrily. 

So she stopped entirely, and stood her ground, glaring at him. He slowed his ship, as he prepared to shoot her down, Dremora Lords shouting all around them, Dwarven automata clanging and hissing with steam, Onmund doing his Nord shout at the top of his lungs as he kicked at a Dwarven spider. 

Anya planted her hands on her hips and shouted the Cyclone shout, causing every enemy of hers to be thrown into windy confusion, including Corelian and his ship. The ship wasn’t blown away, but Corelian was knocked backwards long enough for Onmund to shout, “Let’s go!” and they sprinted as fast as they could back to the building with the Oblivion Gate in it. 

Onmund pressed the button, hearing the Automatons racing after them and hearing Corelian begin to shoot after them. The magic door swished open, they ran through and leaped through the Oblivion Gate, not caring that they would come through on the other side with headache and nausea. 

All of the sounds of pursuit cut off abruptly as they went through the gate, and after what seemed an eternity, Anya opened her eyes and found them both lying on the floor of the Dwemer waiting room or church with all of its old, dusty benches. “Up!” she said. “Quickly now! To the elevator!” 

Onmund scrambled to his feet and they ran, holding hands to keep together, stumbling over wreckage and rocks, for what seemed like miles and miles, until they came to that odd branching off of the tunnel. Anya was just beginning to hear clanking and hissing behind them. Way behind them. Corelian was after them again. Still! 

“This way!” Onmund shouted, dragging her down the “dead end” to the Dwarven Elevator. “Oh, Gods—if it doesn’t work, we’re dead!” he muttered, grabbing the bent lever and jerking it forward to start the upward motion of the elevator. 

After a brief hesitation, with a huge wheeze, the elevator raced upward, hopefully bringing them back to their beloved Skyrim. They held each other tightly, so terrified that Corelian might follow after them. Anya didn’t know what she would do if he did. What if she started a war with the Dwemer? 

“Surely, he won’t dare come to the surface?” Onmund mused breathlessly. “After all, if he did, everyone would know about the Dwemer and. . .”

“Yes,” Anya said. “Let us hope he relies upon our silence about their whereabouts. For we cannot tell anyone about this, Onmund. Upon peril of our death or even a war.” 

Onmund looked shocked. “I suppose you’re right.” 

They held each other in silence for the remainder of the very long ride up, listening to the creakings, groanings and whirrings of the great elevator as it made its way to their homeland. At last, it ground to a stop and they saw a great bronze gate before them with a lever to open it. They pushed it down and the doors sprang open, and they cautiously eased their way out into the Skyrim night, full of the sound of crickets. The stars—the beautiful Skyrim stars—winked and blinked overhead in the constellations they knew and loved: Akatosh the great dragon, Lady Dibella, the lover, the Three Thieves. Ahhh. . . 

After a little exploration, they discovered they had come up not far from Deep Folk Crossing, just North of Markarth. Anya had a home there that they could go to and rest. But they were so tired that they put up a small shelter, made a fire, spread out their furs and went to sleep in the warmth of each other’s arms, hopeful that they would never see Corelian or the Dwemer again. 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my imaginings of what the wily Dwemer might have gotten up to over the past 4000 years away from Skyrim. I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
